SkepticalObservor

The errant and undisciplined ruminations of a Conservative public interest attorney, GOP activist, and father of two sons. Nothing herein should be confused with tolerance of folly, RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), sufferance of fools gladly, or endorsement of perversion.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

A popular meme on Facebook has been the notion that recent mass-killings in schools (Virginia Tech; Newtown) have been conducted by Democrats. Some of this has been obviously wrong: the Virginia Tech shooter was identified as a "Registered Democrat" and was from Northern Virginia, and as everyone knows, no one in Virginia is a "registered" anything, since we don't register by party here. And once, as an adoptive Virginian, I read this, I had little interest in fact-checking the other assertions.

Nevertheless, in today's Denver Post, a story appears identifying the shooter in yesterday's Arapahoe High School shooting as an adherent to a series of far-Left views.

I wonder if "The Richmonder" will be touting this confluence of politics and violence?

Friday, March 08, 2013

It's one thing when an obscure blogger engages in political hackery. It's quite another when a major newspaper does so.

Communist "journalist" I.F. Stone famously observed that "What makes the Washington Post a great newspaper is that you never know on what page you'll find the page-one story." Sometimes, the page-one story is nowhere to be found, except in the archives.

For instance, yesterday, the WaPo devoted no less than three stories to the Senate GOP filibuster against President Barry's nominee to fill a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. One pretends to be a straight news story by Paul Kane ("Democrats said that the GOP filibuster was a politically motivated
effort to halt the career of a potential Supreme Court justice"). Another is an op-ed from Greg Sargent, bemoaning filibusters generally. The third and final is the third editorial on the editorial page, which called for an "up or down vote."

The D.C. Circuit is often described as "the second-most important court in the land," given its jurisdiction over Federal agencies and rule-making, and the fact that those who sit on it are frequently promoted to the United States Supreme Court. No fewer than four sitting Justices --- Antonin Scalia; Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Chief Justice John Roberts --- sat first on the D.C. Circuit.

So it's little surprise that Presidents treat their appointments to the D.C. Circuit seriously, and Senators treat them no less seriously when considering their confirmation.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats failed to break a Republican filibuster against one such nominee, Caitlin Halligan. I won't get into the merits or demerits of that nomination. What is interesting is the facts that are absent from the WaPo's three articles on the issue.

What do all three have in common? Not a single one mentions that the seat to which Halligan has been appointed is the one vacated by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2005, and that Democrats refused to vote on President Bush's nominee to fill the seat, Peter D. Keisler, who served briefly as acting Attorney General in the Bush Administration, and on whose nomination Democrats refused to act when they seized control of the Senate in 2006.

It's not like this fact is hard to find; after all, Wikipedia has a nice entry on the D.C. Circuit which includes identification of the tenure of various judges in office, and another on Keisler. One would thing that this fact is of at least marginal significance, particularly since the WaPo's editorial complains that "When lawmakers hold nominees hostage to politics and ideology, trampling
the legitimate prerogative of the president to staff the government and
the judiciary, it degrades the effectiveness of government and the
courts, deters qualified people from pursuing public service and poisons
the politics in Washington."

And indeed, five years ago, the WaPo called it "a travesty that [Keisler] has yet to get a vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee," so I can't call the WaPo's attitude "hypocritical," which was how this post got started

But why is it any less a "travesty" that Democrats seek to profit from their petulance by putting one of their own into a seat they unfairly held open? The WaPo does not explain, because no one there wants people to remember how we got here.

Blogger Sargent is correct about one thing, however: Democrats are reaping what they sowed. However, Sargent is incorrect in complaining that it's about "weak" filibuster "reform." What they sowed was a war over the Federal judiciary. It's a battle they chose when they went to the courts to pursue an agenda they couldn't pass democratically, and when they smeared the late Robert Bork. And it's one they doubled down upon when they unfairly blocked President Bush's judicial nominees. Complaining about Senate Republicans finally choosing to engage in the battle by employing like tactics is simply a demand that the other side unilaterally disarm.

After all, if those wascally Wepublicans didn't use the same weapons as the Democrats, they'd be so much easier to defeat.

Since he has no such tags for "Left Wing Terrorism" and "Left Wing Violence," one can only presume that there are some kinds of terrorism and violence that he supports. And no mention of mob violence perpetrated by labor unions in Wisconsin and Michigan. Don't expect to see a report on perpetrators of union violence. Mr. Wilmore offers 'nary a word about that violence in February and March 2011, or in December 2012, respectively. In Wisconsin, the tag is for "Wisconsin Protests" (emphasis added).

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Reading my WaPo today --- yes, I'm one of those anachronisms who still subscribes to and reads daily papers --- I came across an article on the late Richard Ben Cramer, who died on Monday at age 62. As the article details, Cramer was, in many ways, a throwback to the caffeine-addicted, chain-smoking --- lung cancer ultimately claimed him --- reporters of yore.

Cramer, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 (at age 29) is best known for his 1992 work “What It Takes: The Way To the White House,” a huge tome on the 1988 presidential race. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley calls it "“arguably the finest book on campaign politics of all time."

I had the privilege of dining with Mr. Cramer and his assistant at a Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention some years ago, and while I can't say I knew the man or got to know him well on that brief encounter, he struck me as a very nice guy, a hail-fellow-well-met sort of man whose friendliness and good humor doubtless served him well in his chosen profession. It was easy to understand how he got to know his subjects so well.

Friday, January 04, 2013

Here's a post which caught my eye. It complains of the fact that nationwide, Democrat House candidates won the popular vote by less than a percentage point (49.15% to 48.03%), but Republicans won a 33-seat majority. In Virginia, Republican candidates won the popular vote by 2%, but won eight out of eleven seats.

To be sure, this is a function of gerrymandering. To be sure, there are exceptions (one-seat states like Alaska, Wyoming, and North Dakota) which skew the results, but it's almost a fair point. If, of course, we lived in a parliamentary system of government, and not a representative republic. But of course, the moonbats on far Left never let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

Here's one they cast proverbial Memory Hole: that there were crickets chirping over at Blow Me ... er, Blue Virginia when a Democrat gerrymander for the Virginia State Senate resulted in 20 Democrat Senators, even though statewide, Democrat Senate candidates won less than 43% of the vote.

You can be taken seriously as people of principle when Virginia Democrats surrender three of those seats. And reverse the effort to carve up Prince William County like a Thanksgiving turkey (one whole district and parts of four others in a county whose population justifies two full seats, and part of another) to preserve Chuck Colgan's seat.

Apparently, Eric Cantor's opponent, E. Wayne Powell, is facing bar charges for alleged misconduct in litigation a few years ago.

I'm not sure this is news. Now, if a Democrat nominee had told the truth,that would be news!

UPDATE: I should say that Powell might be acquitted. That's always a possibility, especially when you consider the fact that a large percentage of bar charges are the stuff of disgruntled clients, usually just misunderstandings or efforts at retaliation for perceived wrongs. But if you follow the link, you'll find that the evidence against him are court records and transcripts. Pretty damning stuff.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

This story on the Obama reelection efforts (which confirms a discussion by a Democratic political operative at last weekends Alumni College at Hampden-Sydney College, which I attended as a panelist on another panel) appears in today's Politico.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

As a native of Pennsylvania and the great-grandson of a coal miner, I would probably be remiss if I failed to take note of the fact that Sunday, 27 May 2012, will be the 50th anniversary of the start of the Centralia Coal Mine fire, a tragedy which has, in the intervening fifty years, killed a pretty little town in the mountains southwest of the place in which I grew up.

The whole sorry affair seems, from beginning to end, to come down to stupidity and arrogance, always a dangerous combination (see President Barack Obama). What a crying shame.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

I suppose it isn't bad enough that Eleventh Congressional District Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-WaPo) holds Virginia's Right to Work law in contempt, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of downtown international labor unions in (mis)representing his constituency.

Now, he's trying to stick his nose into Wisconsin, and aid far-Left attempts to recall Governor Scott Walker for daring to challenge union power and special privileges in that state by accusing Governor Walker of perjury. Along with other union-boss apologists Elijah Cummings and Christopher Murphy, Connolly is complaining that Walker may have "lied" under oath because he failed to disclose a casual conversation with a constituent, and comes up with a politically-contrived "contradiction" between Governor Walker's answer and what Connolly thinks he said.

Fortunately, it appears that Connolly has hitched is wagon to a fading star, as recent internal Democrat polls show a surge for Governor Walker going into the last two weeks of the campaign.

Connolly really needs to replace that union "bug" on his campaign materials with the old RCA Victor logo. You remember: the one with the dog sitting next to the Victrola, listening to his master's voice?

Would someone please retire this clown? Hoe's an embarrassment not only to Northern Virginia, but to the Commonwealth as a whole.

Monday, May 07, 2012

As someone old enough to remember the disaster which was the Administration of Jimmy Carter, this is commentary designed to not aid President Barry's chances for reelection. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's National Security Adviser, should perhaps explain the foreign-policy disaster which was Carter's presidency before reviewing President Barry's performance.

I'll leave further commentary on the matter to my state Delegate, Scott Lingamfelter (R-31):

For several years, Republicans in the General Assembly ... have advanced efforts to address voter fraud. It's hardly deniable given recent history.

Take the 2008 General Election that put former "Saturday Night Live" comedic clown Al Franken of Minnesota in the US Senate. A study by Minnesota Majority, a conservative watchdog group, found that at least 341 convicted felons in largely Democratic Minneapolis-St. Paul voted illegally in the 2008 Senate race between Franken, a Democrat, and then-incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. The final recount showed Franken beat Coleman by 312 votes, less than the number of felons who voted.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in South Bend, Indiana have filed charges against four Democratic officials and deputies in a multiple-felony case alleging the forging of Democratic presidential primary petitions in the 2008 election for then-candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. These officials are accused of faking signatures and names on the primary petitions needed to run for President. Court papers say the plan was conceived by local Democratic Party officials inside the local party headquarters. Here's the link:

Incidents like this one can be found around the nation so legislatures across America have moved to bring greater integrity to both registration and voting. This is why Republicans in the House of Delegates are taking action. Here are a few examples.

HB 9 says a voter without identification will be offered a provisional ballot that will be reviewed by the electoral board at its meeting on the day following the election if he presents proper identification.

HB 57 provides that the general registrar will process the State Board's most recent list of convicted felons within 21 to 14 days before an election, cancel the registration of any registered voter shown to be a felon, and notify the registered voter of the cancellation.

HB 63 provides that the meeting of the electoral board on the day or days following an election is open only to authorized party and candidate representatives and the persons who cast the provisional ballots with their representatives or legal counsel.

All of these bills make sense. HB 9 gets rid of the current system that lets a voter simply sign a statement saying they are the person they claim to be. Now they need to show identification. HB 57 makes it tougher for felons to slip through the cracks and vote. And HB 63 basically keeps organizations like the corrupt ACORN group from influencing vote counting of provisional ballots.

While these bill are not perfect ..., they do improve the system. But that did not stop liberal Democrats in the House of Delegates from opposing all of them this year. And in each case, House Democrats argued "where is the evidence of voter fraud in Virginia?" Well we now have that answer, as if we didn't know.

Virginia Democrats and their apologists in the moonbatosphere have consistently asked for evidence of voter fraud in the Commonwealth to evade sensible protections against its perpetration. Now that they have it, they have two choices: (1) support these reasonable regulations; or (2) explain why they won't/come up with another reason for not doing so.

Of course, if Virginia Democrats take the former course, I look forward to the apologies and mea culpas from them.

I won't hold my breath.

If, however, they choose the latter course, they'll have to come up with another reason why they won't support efforts to root out voter fraud. Might it be that the real reason for doing so is because Democrats are its most frequent --- though not exclusive --- practitioners, and they expect to benefit from it?

About Me

James Young is an attorney (licensed in D.C. and Pennsylvania only) with a public interest legal aid organization, is a nationally-recognized expert in labor and constitutional law in the context of individual rights, and has argued two cases before the United States Supreme Court. He has been married to his wife, Brenda, for 22 years, and they have two sons, Jimmy (16) and Patrick (11). In his professional capacity, he travels frequently, with cases in Philadelphia, Alaska, Hawaii, and California. His clients are quite diverse, and include farmworkers in California, Congressmen in Washington (challenging an Executive Order issued by Bill Clinton), pro football players with the Washington Redskins, and Barry Williams (big brother Greg on the Brady Bunch). From 1998 until 2005, he was a weekly political columnist for the Potomac News in Woodbridge, Virginia. He is active in Virginia Republican politics, and is a member of the Federalist Society.